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OIF - Marie Curie actions-Outgoing International Fellowships

Objetivo

The primary questions that drive the Mars exploration program focus on life. Has life ever existed on Mars? The clues for answering these questions are locked up in the geological record of the planet, and slowly spacecraft analyses have unveiled the rich geological history of Mars. This past year has probably been the most exciting time never known for Mars exploration. In addition to two NASA spacecrafts orbiting around the red planet for a few years, two NASA rovers landed last January. Joining them thi s year was the European spacecraft, Mars Express with innovative instruments with unprecedented spectral and spatial resolution. The richness and diversity of imagery and remote sensing data now available can give us new insight into the past history of wa ter on Mars. In this scientific context, this project proposes to study the evidences for past water cycles on Mars. The objectives of this project are to quantify the volume duration and timing of water activity on Mars in order to solve the question of p ersistent climatic conditions favourable to life development. This project will cover several disciplines (spatial data processing, planetary geology, terrestrial geology, mineralogy and chemistry) while using a variety of remote sensing data from both NAS A and ESA spacecrafts. This project propose an international collaboration between American research and European research community with two one-year phases : a first phase at Center for Earth and Planetary Studies, Smithsonian Institution (Washington, US A), and a return phase at Interaction et Dynamic des Environments de Surface (Orsay, France). Both institutions have experience in study of water lain processes on Mars. The intentional collaboration inherent to this project will be especially relevant for European research competitiveness because of the high level of experience gained by American researchers in planetary science and space exploration.